As noted on
Steam News Half-Life 2 is now officially available at retail stores
throughout North America. Though Valve's highly anticipated sequel has been
available early at some over-caffeinated stores (story), the
online activation process is now underway, and copies of the game purchased at
stores or online via Steam can now be
unlocked by restarting Steam:

Half-Life 2 is available now for purchase
and to play. Those who pre-purchased their copy via Steam may access the game by
restarting Steam, then double-clicking on the Half-Life 2 icon in their Steam
Games directory. To purchase your copy via Steam,
get Steam now.

FUCK STEAM! FUCKE IT! I bought the Collectors edition to avoid having to deal with that bullshit STEAM nonsense. NOW HERE I AM WAITINGF FOR 20 MIN WAITING FOR THE FUCKING STEAM NETWORK TO GET ME REGISTERED! I JUST PAID ALMOST $90 TO SIT HERE AND WAIT AND KEEP GETTING DROPPED FROM THE STEAM SERVICE!!! FUCK THIS, THIS IS FUCKING NONSENSE!!! FUCK VALVE! I'm usually a very positive gamer but this really gets me fuckin STEAMED! I better get this shit to work within a hours time or this fucking shit is going back to the store and I'll weait for the inevitable warezed version... and I don't even copy games!!! The simple fact is a customer should not be forced to register online with a service they don't want if they already paid a HUGE amount for the product! MAN I AM SOOOO FUCKIN PISSED RIGHT NOW!!!!!